The papers (1936-1985) of Johns Hopkins professor of statistics, Acheson J. Duncan, are largely research papers that describe his concentration in the fields of bulk sampling, industrial statistics, and quality control. The collection spans the years 1936 to 1985. Along with materials from his teaching and writing career are his investigations in sampling and statistics that were important to two technical organizations, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC).

The collection has been artificially arranged into 5 series - Series 1: Personal; Series 2: Research; Series 3: American Society for Testing and Materials; Series 4: American Society for Quality Control; Series 5: Writings; and Series 6: Department of Mathematical Sciences. Subject headings assigned by Professor Duncan have been retained. In the files are printed materials, correspondence, computations, draft materials, and Duncan's statistical studies. A further description of items is given in the Series Description and the Container List.

A very small group of items forms the Personal Series. Among the items are student notes, his dissertation from Princeton (1936), biographical information and a bibliography of published works. Of interest in Series 2: Research are the files in Box 4 on bulk sampling, the specialized work for which Duncan was well known. In Series 3 and 4 are files that describe Duncan's committee work with the ASTM and the ASQC. Duncan's notes on design and revision of industrial and military standards are included. Printed committee correspondence of the ASQC (1974-1983) is included in Series 6.

In Series 5: Writings are a large group of Duncan's annotated drafts for journal articles and some chapters for his texts. Final items are in Series 6: Department of Mathematical Sciences including some lecture notes, department bulletins, and committee reports. Three boxes of material that included course material (1974-1975) and published technical reports written by the faculty of the Department of Mathematical Sciences were transferred to the University Archives. (See Record Group 06-090).

Administrative Information

Provenance

The papers were received from the Department of Mathematical Sciences in 1994. The Accession Number is 94-95.29.

Use Restrictions

Access is unrestricted.

Permission to publish material from this collection must be requested in writing from the Manuscripts Librarian, Milton S. Eisenhower Library, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Md. 21218.

Preferred Citation

Biographical Note

Acheson J. Duncan was an authority in the fields of industrial statistics and quality control during a period when both design of methods and a response to need were required. The application of new statistical methods to the problem of quality control had its origins in the 20th century. Early work in statistical methods and quality control was begun by Walter A. Shewhart of the Bell Telephone Laboratories who published Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product in 1931. Shewhart's work was important to statisticians, engineers, military persons, and industrialists who were compelled to develop improved scientific production methods during and after the Second World War. In a tribute to Acheson Duncan, Robert Roy, a former dean of engineering at Hopkins, credited Duncan's work in statistical quality control with aiding the post-war recovery of the Japanese economy.

Acheson J. Duncan was born September 24, 1904 in Leonia, New Jersey. Duncan was educated at Princeton University (B.S., 1923; M.A, 1927; Ph.D., 1936), and after service on the Princeton faculty and in the U.S. Army (1942-1945), he came to The Johns Hopkins University in 1946 as an associate professor of statistics. At Hopkins, he joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering's program in industrial engineering. Duncan retired in 1971 as professor emeritus of statistics.

Throughout his career, Duncan wrote extensively on research in his field. His third book, Quality Control and Industrial Statistics, was published in 1952 and has had five editions with translations in Indian and Japanese. He was a contributor to prominent journals in the field including Industrial Quality Control, Journal of the American Statistical Association, and Journal of the Operations Research Society of America. Duncan was a fellow of the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) and was awarded that society's Shewhart Medal in 1964. He was the first chair of the Baltimore section of the society. He was also a fellow of the American Statistical Society, the Institute for Mathematical Statistics, and a member of the Biometric Society. In 1979, he won the inaugural Harold F. Dodge Award from the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), of which he was a member. Duncan served too as a consultant to numerous industries and government agencies.

In 1986 an endowed fund, the Acheson J. Duncan Distinguished Visitor Fund at Hopkins, was established. The fund supports an annual visit and lecture by a scholar in mathematical sciences. Acheson J. Duncan died in Baltimore, January 7, 1994.

Description of Series/Container List

Series 1: Personal

1 document box.

Series 1: Personal is a very small series containing a copy of Acheson Duncan's dissertation from Princeton (1936) and student notes from Princeton. There are lecture note and correspondence with Horace Hotelling from whom Duncan took a non-matriculating class at Columbia in 1931. The prestigious award, "The Shewhart Medal," awarded to Duncan in 1964 from The American Society for Quality Control is part of this series. (The award in filed in Oversize Drawer 7 in the Spec Coll workroom.) Some biographical information and a bibliography of published work complete the series.

Arranged by subject.

Box

Contents

1

Biography, Bibliography

1

Dissertation, Princeton, 1936. Studies in the process of trade adjustment with special reference to the international trade of South Africa, 1886-1934.

Series 2: Research

3 record center boxes.

Acheson Duncan's research centered mainly on the economic design of control charts and the sampling of bulk materials. In Series 2: Research are papers that describe Duncan's work in these fields as well as his research for industrial applications. In Boxes 2 and 3, filed alphabetically by subject, are files that contain Duncan's computations, notes, correspondence with industries, design of experiments, control studies, and analysis of processes. In Box 4 are files on sampling that have been grouped separately because they are representative of the specialized work in the field of statistical quality control for which Duncan was well known. The materials in this last box of the series describe research in bulk sampling, distribution, testing, and simulations.

Series 3: American Society for Testing and Materials

1 record center box.

The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), founded in 1898, is a scientific and technical organization formed for "the development of standards on characteristics and performance of materials, products, systems, and services." The Society operates through its main technical committees and subcommittees. The ASTM publishes annually The Book of Standards used by buyers/sellers in contracts; scientists and engineers in laboratories; architects and designers in plans; and government agencies in codes, regulations, and laws.

Much of Acheson Duncan's work with ASTM was done within Committee E-11. In 1960 he was appointed to Committee E-11 on Quality Control of Materials and to sub-committee II on Sampling of Bulk Materials. In 1961 he became secretary of Committee E-11 (later named Committee on Statistical Methods). Duncan and other committee members produced Designation E 300 - Standard Practice for Sampling Industrial Chemicals. The standard was approved in 1973 and reapproved in 1983. (The standard, E-300, is described in Section 6: Paints, Related Coatings, and Aromatics and Section 15: General Products, Chemical Specialities, and End Use Products in the Annual Book of ASTM Standards.).

In Series 3 are correspondence, computations, research articles, draft material, statistical studies, and Duncan's notes on terminology. The largest part of the series is related to Committee E-11. Of interest is a file on a proposed manual on bulk sampling (1977), a project of interest to Duncan and a colleague, Emil H. Jebe. Final items are related to defense work on military standards during the 1960s.

Arranged topically.

Box

Contents

5

Calibration

5

Committee D-4 1968-1973

5

Committee E-11 1970-1982 (16 folders)

5

Correspondence 1980

5

Designation D2777-72

5

Manual on bulk sampling 1977

5

Revision of E-300 (2 folders)

5

Standard practice for establishing consistent test method tolerances

5

Terminology

5

Project Threshold

5

Proposed redraft of Mil-Std 781c 1977

5

Mil-Std 105D 1962-1963

5

Mil-Std 1235a (Mu) 1959-1962

Series 4: American Society for Quality Control

1 record center box.

Industrialists and manufacturers were challenged during the Second World War to find techniques for weapons perfection and improved production methods. In the national interest, groups of persons responsible for the quality of manufactured products formed small groups to share information. When emergency conditions ended, local control societies joined to form the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) in 1946. In July of 1997, the society's name was changed to American Society for Quality.

Duncan was one of the founders of the Baltimore section of ASQC in 1953. He was a member of the editorial board and participated in national and regional conferences. In Series 3 are correspondence, newsletters, revision work on standards, computations, research papers, and meeting agendas. Statisticians, manufacturers, and quality control specialists from the United States eventually joined with international colleagues to form the International Organization for Standardization. Final items in this series relate to Duncan's participation in the ISO 1973-1982. Printed material in these files relates to drafts of test applications for the development of international standards. Some of this material is in French.

Arranged by subject.

Box

Contents

6

Newsletters Baltimore Section 1969-1979

6

Baltimore Section 1947-

6

Meetings. Baltimore. 1953

6

Comments on Draft 2, June 1977

6

Committee correspondence:

1974-1975

1975

1977 (3 folders)

1978-1980 (2 folders)

1979

1981

1982

1982

1983

1983

6

Consumer product safety 1974

6

Compression between economically designed Cusum and Shewhart charts for control charts. Survey return. 1956

6

Cusum charts. 1977

6

Outline of talk on Cusum charts

6

History

6

ISO/DIS 4259

6

Standards Group

6

Statistical Standards Committee of the Statistics Division 1980-1983

6

Task Force Mil. STD 414

6

Draft TC69/SC6 N26. Conformity with specifications

6

ISO/TC 69/SC 6

6

International Organization for Standardization:

Draft TC69/SC6 N26. Conformity with specifications

6

ISO/TC 69/SC 6,

6

ISO Discussion Papers:

1973

1976

1980

1982

1982

6

Comments on ISO draft proposal 8258. Shewhart control charts,

6

Comments on ISO DP3534 Rev. 2 1984,

Series 5: Writings

1 record center box.

Throughout his career, Acheson Duncan wrote extensively in the field of statistical quality control. With James G. Smith, he co-authored, Elementary Statistics and Applications (1944) and Sampling Statistics and Applications (1945). Duncan's most notable work was his third book, Quality Control and Industrial Statistics, which has had five editions and has been published in both India and Japan.

In Series 5: Writings are examples of Duncan's work on book chapters and for his many published articles. The papers are both holographic and annotated typescript. The chapter numbers and titles have been copied from Duncan's original files. Notes, computations, correspondence, and writings of colleagues, are often included in the files. Some of the chapter titles correspond to Duncan's collaboration with James G. Smith. All of the writings are related to Duncan's major interest in sampling and questions of quality control. Also in the series are drafts of articles which Duncan published in scientific journals. The drafts are filed by title but do not always include dates or full citations. Full citations could be found in bibliographies compiled by Duncan in Series 1, Box 1.

"Derivation of sampling plans for determining compliance with a standard for the mean of a distribution."

"Differential analysis of the accident record of six types of single aircraft used in air carrier flying, 1949-1951"

"The economic design of x charts when there is a multiplicity of assignable causes." 1971

"The economic design of P-charts to maintain current control of a process: some numerical results."

"A general review of quality and quality-control standards."

"Group #3"

"Kurtosis and the Kurtosis Parameter 1/2"

"Least squares and regression."

"Memorandum on lot acceptance sampling with special reference to a isolated lot and AQL acceptance sampling."

"Observation on cluster-variance functions." 1972

"Observations on some models for sampling from a conveyor belt."

"Operating characteristics of the Dryoff acceptance procedure."

"Operating characteristics of fertilizer inspection plans based on the Miles-Quackenbush tolerances illustrated for mixed fertilizer with 10% nitrogen."

Outline of talk on process capability studies.

"Problem on fractional replication for a design of experiments course."

"Practice for use of measures of precision of a test method and product variability."

"Quality control and industrial statistics."

"Quality control, statistical."

"A simplified procedure for the use of orthogonal polynomials."

"Sampling of bulk material."

"Some recent developments related to Mil.Std. 414."

"Some remarks on design of control chart inspection plans for quality control."

"Suggested sample design for determining average fuel economy of a manufacturer's fleet of cars.

"Systematic belt sampling and autocorrelation."

"Variance estimates for sampling a stream of bulk material."

"What sampling plan to use."

Series 6: Department of Mathematical Sciences

1 record center box.

The Department of Mathematical Sciences had its origins in 1946 when an undergraduate curriculum in industrial engineering was first introduced. In 1947, Robert H. Roy was appointed Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Roy's appointment led to the creation of the Department of Industrial Engineering in 1950. The 1950s saw an increasing demand for engineering and business graduates, and by the end of the decade, faculty specialties extended from industrial organization and management to statistics and accounting. In 1964, the department was renamed the Department of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering. In the 1970s the Department expanded dramatically and became one of the largest departments in the University. In 1973 the Department was renamed the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

A more detailed history and records of the Department of Mathematical Sciences are available in the University Archives. Record Group 06-090. The Robert H. Roy Papers Ms. 354, a small collection of mostly published material, is also available in Special Collections.

Acheson Duncan came to Hopkins in 1946 as a professor of statistics and joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering's program in industrial engineering. During his career at Hopkins, he referred to himself as a professor of statistics. He taught classes in quality control and industrial statistics, analysis of variance and regression, experimental design, and analysis of reponse surfaces.

In Series 6 are lecture notes, course material, departmental reports, seminar papers, committee reports, departmental bulletins, and agendas for the General Assembly meetings for the School of Arts and Sciences. Most of the material appears to have been collected by Acheson Duncan during the period after 1971 when he was professor emeritus.

Three record center boxes containing department files and copies of tech reports produced in the department were transferred to the University Archives, July 1997. This material will be added to the Records of the Department of Mathematical Sciences. RG 06-090.